Edmonton Oilers GM Craig MacTavish knows he has to remake his back-end in a big way — he’s got way too many guys playing too high up in the pecking order, out of positiion, playing more minutes than they’re comfortable with or against people they can’t yet handle — but for now, the cavalary isn’t coming with any veteran NHL recruits.

Instead, he’s taking the simpler route, as so many teams do, and reaching down into the minors and bringing up defencemen Martin Marincin and Corey Potter from Oklahoma City with Denis Grebeshkov going back to the AHL.

This is the same Potter who was sent to OKCity on Monday because they had a roster crunch and were at the max of 23 players with injured goalie Ilya Bryzgalov still on the roster, but now Bryzgalov is on IR with a possible concussion.

Marincin, meanwhile, has obviously shown enough in his second year in the AHL for an NHL look, although he didn’t get much of one in training camp.

– Grebeshkov, while a wonderful guy, looks like a swing and a miss after MacTavish brought him back from the KHL at $1.5 million, one-way. MacTavish always liked Grebeshkov from when he was his coach, trying to balance his defensive peccadilloes with his ability to get the puck up the ice, but the NHL game looks too fast for him now. The Russian had a groin problem in camp, didn’t play much. He was back and forth to the minors twice, now it’s a third time. He’s a good man, accountable for his mistakes and excited to give it another shot here, but playing in a more sterile European game (more time and space) hasn’t helped.

– No call-up of Oscar Klefbom, who is the supposed best prospect in the Oilers organization. Klefbom, 20, did get a cameo when he was called up three weeks ago but didn’t dress and was quickly sent back to the AHL. Taylor Fedun got the call earlier and played four games, Philip Larsen has been to OKC and back, and now Marincin is up. But no Klefbom, who is minus-9 in 18 games with two assists. This means one of two things: (a) either he’s not playing that well or (b) their game-plan is to keep the 20-year-old Swede in OKC for most of this season as, say, Detroit has done with their young D-men (ie. Brendan Smith) over the years.

– Nobody’s quite sure what Marincin is. He’s still a stringbean at six-foot-four and 187 lb. at last report. He’s got offensive ability, but how much? He had 30 points in 67 games in OKC last season and has six points in 20 games this year. He is a plus player (plus four) though. Who does he replace against the Colorado Avalanche Thursday? Maybe Anton Belov.

– Belov, another free-agent signing from the KHL, was a very good player there who had made steps to being in the Russian national team picture, but one-third of the way through his first NHL season, nobody’s quite sure what he is. He’s only been a single, to use the baseball analogy, not a double or a triple. “He seems to play the game at the same speed, I’m waiting for a next gear,” said one long-time NHL scout who’s seen lots of Oilers games this season. “It’s playing over there on the big ice. For a defenceman there is no fore-checking, you have time to go back and get the puck, pass it to your defence partner. There’s none of that in the NHL. And he’s 28. Can he change how he plays?” Belov has ability and he certainly has size, but he’s not really physical (24 PIMs). There’s no greasiness to his game (there’s not much of that on the Oilers defence as a whole). He can hammer the puck, but he has 30 shots in 27 games. He hasn’t scored a goal; four assists. He’s minus-6. He’s definitely trying to find his way on a much more suffocating NHL rink

– Potter will likely take Grebeshkov’s place and maybe get some powerplay point time. He’s played six games after overcoming a bad back that KO’d his training camp. Truthfully, he shouldn’t have been sent to OKC this week. Grebeshkov probably should have been.

Edmonton Oilers defenceman Jeff Petry.

– While coach Dallas Eakins wasn’t happy with Jeff Petry’s play against Phoenix — Keith Yandle went inside-out on him and blew one past Devan Dubnyk — and Petry made a mistake in Dallas the game before, not seeing Ryan Garbutt coming behind him for a goal, all this talk of maybe Petry coming out against the Avs seems like so much hot air. He only played 17-1/2 minutes against the Coyotes, but he’s played at least 20 minutes in 22 of the Oilers’ 29 games. You wouldn’t think that Eakins would take out a guy who plays 22 minutes a game. His problem, like so many of the Oilers defencemen is, he is playing too high up on the ladder. Petry is probably a second-pairing guy playing first-pairing minutes. Same story with young Justin Schultz, who really struggled against Phoenix (minus-3). Right now, he is not a top two defenceman you can play against the other team’s big guys because he has to get stronger physically in his end and he’s played 69 NHL games. He’s not ready for that first-pairing, big minutes responsibility, but on this team, he plays 21-1/2 minutes a night because he’s their only legit offensive D-man.

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PHOTO: Getty ImagesEdmonton Oilers forward Anton Lander.

Bringing back centre Anton Lander and sending down the game but maybe overmatched-for-now NHLer Will Acton makes organizational sense, for sure, although the Oilers do not appear to know what the former second-round draft Lander is. Is he a fourth-line NHL centre who can kill penalties? Or can he be more? He’s getting his points in the AHL but almost nothing here . He’s played 68 NHL games but has scored just seven points. Two goals, and he’s averaged about 11 minutes a game. We may be at the point now with Lander (24 in April and drafted in 2009) as we were with his buddy Magnus Paajarvi, who was traded to St. Louis along with a second-round draft for David Perron. Does Lander fit into the Oilers’ long-range plans or not? The clock is ticking on him.

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One last thing: We are now a third of the way through the season, and winger Nail Yakupov does not have one even-strength goal. This is not a good thing for a talent like him, to state the obvious. He has four goals, all on the power play.

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